English and drama

Romance

Module code: Q3272
Level 5
15 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Seminar
Assessment modes: Coursework

The origins of this rich and complicated genre lie in the Middle Ages, when romance was the most popular form of secular literature and the particular narrative form in which women characters developed agency and subjectivity.

Medieval romance has a profound influence on later literature, and, as we’ll explore on the module, on the novel, making it one of the most important genres to English literary history.

Despite this, romance is a peculiarly discredited genre – a bit of an embarrassment to write, and to be seen reading. We’ll ask why the discrediting of romance in later periods is bound up with its association with women readers, and, indeed, with women writers. 'I suppose you are for love and a cottage: this comes of reading romances; - women have no business ever to read - or to write either', quips one father to his daughter in an eighteenth-century romance written by one now little-known author, Mary Robinson.

This module introduces us to the history of romance, to feminist scholarship on it, as well as to a history of women as readers and writers, and the ways in which male writers thought about and adapted a genre that was assumed to be feminine.

Module learning outcomes

• Display detailed knowledge of romance as a genre and its development over time
• Analyse examples of romance, ranging from the medieval to the modern, using appropriate literary critical methods and socio-historical contexts
• Work, with a degree of confidence, with Middle English texts in the original language
• Evaluate scholarly arguments, and develop independent thinking about romance, and communicate these effectively in written form